Healthcare enterprises, whether hospitals, nursing homes, surgical centers, physician's offices and so forth, all have challenges tracking their various assets. One problem is that such facilities typically contain a large number of different types of assets, including for example, rooms, gurneys, diagnostic equipment, treatment equipment, bandages and other supplies, drugs, and so forth. Another problem is that such assets are often mobile, and during the course of even a single day can be present at different times in a dozen or more different locations. Similar problems exist for personnel assets, including for example, physicians, nurses, technicians, and other personal.
In addition to difficulties in tracking assets, healthcare enterprises encounter significant difficulties in efficient utilization of assets. That situation occurs for numerous reasons, including for example the fact that many assets are only usable upon cleaning or other preparation, and many are suitable only in combination with other assets. Thus, an x-ray machine might only usable when there is a qualified x-ray technician available to operate it, and a physician might only be able to perform a surgical procedure when accompanied by a nurse having an appropriate skill set.
Healthcare enterprises have made considerable strides over the years in implementing computer systems that address materials management, bed management, staff timekeeping, pharmacy and lab procedures and reporting, and billing. Many enterprises have also implemented applications for specific departments, including for example the emergency rooms (ER), operating rooms (OR), intensive care unit (ICU), and cardiac care units (CCU). Unfortunately, many of these systems have trouble communicating with each other, and some do not communicate with other systems at all. Such lack of communication can significantly reduce efficiency and increase costs.
One might image that manufacturers of the existing systems would develop enterprise wide solution, and indeed in some instances that process is going forward. But enterprise-wide solutions run into enormous problems, not least because manufacturers commonly try to implement proprietary systems and methods that exclude their competitors, and that approach triggers enormous resistance from physicians and staff that might be force to adopt technologies with which they are unfamiliar or comfortable.
It is known that Radio Frequency Identification Tags (RFID tags) can be used to keep tabs on the locations of equipment, supplies, and so forth, and there are already systems on the market that utilize such information for specific applications. For example, there are RFID tag systems that are suitable for keeping track of locations of assets. In 2005 Cisco™ announced its Wireless Location Appliance™ 2700, which uses WiFi access points to gather signal strength indicators from 802.11 devices and tag, and triangulates the information to roughly determine the locations of the devices.
It is also known that RFID tags can be used to obtain and transmit physical parameters data (e.g., time, temp, and moisture, etc), and operational data (e.g., on/off, ready/not ready, damaged, being cleaned, etc). Several manufacturers have already announced plans to include such tags in their equipment, but there do not appear to be any such systems in common use. However, what does not seem to have been appreciated is that all three types of information described above as being derivable from RFID tags (location, physical parameters data, and operational data), can or should be combined and then distributed to multiple different computer systems in a healthcare environment.
It turns out that such a clearinghouse approach to RFID data can bring tremendous value in a highly cost-effective manner.